Desire for loud car predicted by being a man: higher psychopathy and sadism | Hacker News Reader

Desire for loud car predicted by being a man: higher psychopathy and sadism

cipp.ug.edu.pl

41 pointsbookofjoe28 comments

I am not into cars. Most of the men I know are not into cars. A few of them are very into cars. But an overwhelming majority of the women that I was exposed to at a young age were interested in what kind of car a man drives.

Sometimes the simplest explanation of things is that people are acting rationally for their preferences in their situation. And I think most people have similar preferences on different time scales. Most awful things in the world seem to be related to poor capacity for long-term hypothetical thinking. Unfortunately excellent capacity for long-term thinking has a strong correlation with depression, which is obvious if you seriously ask yourself “then what?” enough times. The loud car guy is having a great time in his own little world.

> excellent capacity for long-term thinking has a strong correlation with depression

what's the source?

Do you need one with this many personal anecdotes?

This is one thing that really needs to be legislated and enforced into oblivion.

I dunno, I really enjoy being woken up 2:00 in the morning by the walls of my house shaking from my neighbors car.

Electric cars that don't make much noise seem more dangerous to me as a pedestrian.

So, at low speeds (when tyre noise isn't noticeable) most EVs add a noise, because in many jurisdictions they're required to do so and there are no jurisdictions where it's illegal for cars to make a noise because historically yeah, they're cars, they make a noise.

At higher speeds you can here something moving - there are tyres rolling at high speed over a stone-like surface and that's inherently noisy no matter if there's an engine of any sort.

We probably need cars to make some noise (to warn pedestrians) without being obnoxiously loud.

I appreciate how Dominos complied with Netherland's electric vehicle noise law. Pretty brilliant, IMO. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n17B_uFF4cA

That would quickly become intolerable but the video is funny

It’s funny in the way Luc Besson envisions the urban dystopian future in the Fifth Element—machines, advertising and funny voices.

If the people who modify their exhaust systems are forced to buy EVs they will simply modify their stereo system instead.

EVs won't affect the noise problem, they'll just cause the assholes to change their tactics.

If it came down to it we could mandate electric cars make noise while moving. But this post is about cars that are modified to be way noisier than standard petrol cars.

This is literally true right now that we require electric cars to make noise.

Most high efficiency gas cars are far quieter than electric cars with the required noise makers these days. Pedestrian warning noises should also apply to gas cars.

Oh please. We don't need tractor noise levels coming out of cars to make them safe.

And this is why we can‘t have nice things.

Perhaps this is a controversial opinion, but I think people’s everyday choices and actions can actually give you a lot of insight into who they are as a person.

I say controversial because a lot of people seem to think you can’t judge someone unless they do something really good or really bad. But even simple stuff like regularly complaining about restaurant service, or consistently failing to return their shopping cart gives you insight into how they think.

It’s something I’ve struggled with because I notice these things and other people either don’t notice them or dismiss them.

Everybody will do something "wrong" or "bad" at some point in their lives. Behavior is also usually on a spectrum. Some people might see something as inappropriate, but this is highly dependent on interpretation and perspective. Few things are unambiguously wrong. Yes, you can judge people by their actions. But the people who see somebody not put their shopping cart away once and form a negative opinion aren't exactly balanced. And you see this kind of crap all the time on social media.

If you notice, both of my examples show a repeated pattern of behavior.

You can definitely judge someone off a single action. If someone fails to put away their shopping cart once am i going to judge them? Yes. Do i think they’re a bad person? No.

But I will judge someone who chooses to make their car as loud as possible. It’s not just one decision, it’s a bunch of small decisions that lead to the car being changed, and a decision is made every time they choose to drive it that way.

> Participants were 529 (289 men, 234 women, and 6 identified as other) undergraduate business students with a mean age of 18.14 years

When I was 18 I thought loud annoying modified cars were cool. There is a very popular film franchise called The Fast and the Furious that targeted young men. Then I got older and realized they are really annoying and bother other people. I don't think you can prove much by listening to 18 year olds, who are usually full of terrible thoughts and ideas (like all teenagers). Social science again proves to be of minimal value.

I watched fast & the furious too, yet I’ve always found them annoying.

I'm just as annoyed as everyone else when I hear somebody revving their shit. But I genuinely feel like this is overanalyzing behavior.

Ok this reminds me of those posts on /r/science "Science says redditors are the best and the rightest".

Anyway, research on undergraduate business students with a mean age of 18.14 years, so beware.

> were asked if they viewed their car as an extension of themselves, how much they thought loud cars were “cool”, and if they would make their car louder with muffler modifications. Cronbach’s α of the three car items was .76; therefore an aggregate was generated.

That's slightly surprising, aren't there a lot of other ways for a car to be "cool"?

> Other than legally enforcing laws with respect to these automobile modifications, the present results suggest that other tactics, such as information campaigns, may not be useful as it is unlikely that those scoring higher on psychopathy and sadism would be swayed by the fact that the modified mufflers may be damaging to others, as researchers have recently reported that the dark personality dimensions are negatively correlated with altruism measures

So, the theory is that pointing out it's anti-social is pointless, if they already know it's anti-social and the people doing it are the ones who don't care.

Southpark already did this study.

I hate loud or noisy cars but this is triggering so many of my BS meters.

all of them seems to be young undergraduate students from business school specifically and it's a self reporting test about what they find "cool".

this study probably has less worth than the paper it would written on.

Right. "A sample of 529 (52% men) undergraduate business students were surveyed..." The sample is one of convenience, not validity. Psychology is supposed to be past that point, from the replication crisis. This says more about the quality of "Current Issues in Personality Psychology" than it does about the subject matter.

"in Canada" "In business majors"

Reply on news.ycombinator.com